What is Affiliate Marketing and How to start with it ?

You might have heard of Affiliate Marketing — No ? Strange, but not to worry, there’s a lot ahead in this post and you will get to know much about it (and more) by its end.

First, lets have a look at the Wikipedia Definition of Affiliate Marketing :

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.

Well, Here’s my simplified definition :

“Affiliate Marketing is promoting other people’s (Company’s) product and earning a commision in return (If a sale is made).”

It works the same as in the offline world, however the profit and scope is much bigger over the Internet (Not to Mention that people had exploited this too much though).

So basically what you do as an affiliate is :

You promote other people’s (or Company’s) Product using a special link with a code only being used by you embedded into it (this is required by advertiser to track the leads referred by you).

If someone buys that product (or in some cases completes a task like signing up or completing a survey) using your link, it gets tracked by the advertiser and you are rewarded a commission (which is a percentage of the sale price but can also be a fixed amount as set by the advertiser).

This way both the advertiser and the publisher is benefited. Advertisers get more sales of their product when many publishers (or affiliates) promote their product and Affiliates in turn generate revenue by promoting the product. Moreover Advertiser pays only when a sale is made so there is no risk of getting non converting visits like in some PPC campaigns.

This is the reason why most of the product creators and Advertisers provides an affiliate program for increasing their product sales.

How do I get Started with Affiliate Marketing ?

There are a few things to keep in mind before choosing to get into this business. Firstly, you must find the right Affiliate Product to Promote and secondly you must have an audience that will be interested in that product.

Finding the Right Affiliate Product

This is the most Important Step (literally). If you get wrong here, you will definitely fail in this business. You will have to choose a product which will help your audience. If you have a Weight Loss Blog, then promoting a forex product will be completely useless as it will not get you any sales. Moreover, If you promot a low quality product (lets say,on your blog) , you could be hurting your brand as well.

Remember, To get the best results, always promote a product that you have tried yourself or you must be confident enough of the quality of it.

Below are some of the tips that will help you find a related Affiliate Products :

Browse Affiliate Networks – The easiest way to get started with promoting products is to search though Affiliate Networks. An Affiliate Network act as an intermediary between publishers (affiliates) and merchant affiliate programs. There are a few affiliate networks that list many affiliate programs. You can use their search option to get related products to your blog’s niche. Some of the most famous Affiliate networks are : ClickBank (This is my favourite and also, the first affiliate commission that I earned was by promoting a clickbank product) , Commission Junction (aka CJ), ShareaSale etc.

Search Google – Other way to find relevant affiliate product that you can promote is by doing a simple google search. Just type : “your keyword + Affiliate Program” (Replace “your Keyword” with your niche like “Weight Loss Affiliate Programs”) and you will easily find the appropriate product.

Checkout Online Stores – Almost all of the famous online stores (like Amazon, Ebay) have affiliate programs. You can just sign up for that and then promote any of the stuff that is listed there. Generally the commissions are not big here but as these online stores have a huge range of products, it is not that difficult to get referral sales through them.

Check Your Competition – If you can’t find the products by above methods, you can simply have a look at what your competitors (sites in your niche) are promoting and you can start promoting those products.

Now, these were the ways by which you can select a product to promote.

Promoting the Products and Getting Sales

Well, this is the tricky part.

There are a lot of ways by which you can start promoting your selected product, but I have listed the most effective ways below :

Promote using your Blog : If you have a blog with good following, you can simply put a banner of the affiliate product on your sidebar with your affiliate link, or you can write a review post for that product with your affiliate link in the end of the post. This is a very effective way but make sure the products you promote are self tested by you or which you are confident about. This is because, your blog acts as your brand. Promote useless stuff and you will be destroying your brand.

Use Social Networks : As you all know, social networks are growing at a rapid rate and will continue to grow. Facebook, for example, has nearly 600 million users and twitter has 200 million. And that is what you can make use of.

If you use twitter, you can search for tweets in your niche and reply to them with helpful product links (masked with your affiliate code). For Example : You search for your loved niche, lets say “Weight Loss”, in Twitter and you find a tweet of a desperate person asking for help to loose his/her weight. Now If you know of a product which you think can really help that person, you simply can reply to that tweet with your affiliate product link.

If you use Facebook, you can create a Facebook page or group in your selected niche and once that Page/Group has got good number of fans/members, you can share the affiliate link of a related product (of course, if it is useful) on your Page’s wall. This way you are exposing your affiliate products to targeted people (your Page’s fans) and you will easily be able to get sale of that product.

Write and Submit Articles : Article Marketing is the most exploited way of getting affiliate sales and Guess what ? It works every time. You just need to write an article related to your niche and then submit it to various article directories. You are given a chance to add a resource box in your article where you can add hyperlinks of your choice. But the drawback is that most of the reputed Article Directories do not allow the use of affiliate links in your resource box. So, to get the most benefit, you have to first write a review of the selected affiliate product on your blog or elsewhere (where you can add your affiliate links) and then create a related article, for article directories, containing your review post’s link in the resource box of that article.

If done effectively, this can get you a good amount of targeted visitors to your blog post where they might end up buying that affiliate product. Few things that you need to keep in mind is that you need to create an effective resource box (or Call to Action Box) paragraph which urges the reader to click the link in that box.

Some of the Famous Article Directories where you can submit your articles are :

Ezinearticle.com

Goarticles.com

ArticleAlley.com

Ideamarketers.com

buzzle.com

Create Videos : Video Marketing helps you get tons of targeted traffic easily (Yes, i said ‘easily’). All you have to do is Create a Video Review of the Product you are promoting and upload that video to popular video sharing sites like Youtube. In the description field for that video, Add your affiliate link and that’s it. Videos gets viral too easily, All you need to care is about the Title and the Content of the video. Try to create a catchy Title which makes people view your video.

You can work on Keywords and link building to get the video rank higher in search engines but there is an easy way to get traffic to your video. It is by getting your video listed in the “Related Videos” sectrion of Popular Videos in your niche. This can be achieved by adding the same tags to your video which are used by other Popular Video in your Category.

Create Web 2.0 Properties : Now this is fun. You might have heard of Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, Hubpages etc. These are mostly like article directories but these are community driven, i.e, other users can comment upon or like/dislike your article and accordingly your article is ranked. All you have to do is create an Article around your affiliate product and include your affiliate link in that article. Now you have to work on building backlinks for that article (with your anchored keyword). Web 2.0 sites are loved by Search Engines and it will not be too hard for for you to get it ranked higher for your keyword.

Join Online Forums : This is also a popular form of Marketing Online. First find Forums that are related to your niche and create account there. Next, set up a Signature line there and include your affiliate link in it. The last thing left for you to do is to stay active on these forums and post useful threads there and answer to other posts. If you post useful stuff, People will start trusting you and will browse through your signature links. This way you can easily get affiliate sales.

Build an Email List : Someone rightly said : “The Money is in the list.”

Yes, that’s right, If you have a large number of E-mail list or subscriber to your website, you can often send them Newsletter with an affiliate link. You must craft a cool email that will get your subscribers click through the links in it. This way you can really get good number of affiliate sales for your product. But Remember, If you start sending them affiliate driven emails everyday or emails promoting unrelated products, Your subscriber will unsubscribe from your list and will left you in the vast ocean alone. So use it Wisely.

Create Niche Sites : You might have heard a lot about Niche Sites/blogs these days. Well, a niche site/blog is that which is made around a very specific keyword or niche which has quite a low competition and could be easily ranked for, in Google, with minimal effort. What you have to do is, Research for a lucrative “Low Competition”, “High Traffic” Keyword using some keyword tools and then create a website/blog around that keyword and a few related ones. This type of site might not contain a lot of pages but 5 – 6 content rich (& SEO rich) pages will get you going. Then Start Building backlinks (Off Site SEO) according to the level of competition and in a few days, you would ranking well for those keywords. Now, all you have to do is to place banners or direct affiliate links in your sidebar or Content and see the conversions coming in within a few days.

You could even create a niche site reviewing a product (real life or digital) and that way you will be directly targeting buyers. Make use of keywords like “Product Review”, “Buy Product”, replace “Product” with the name of the product you are promoting. That’s it.

These were the best methods to promote your affiliate links and get sales and commissions.

By Now, you must have attained great knowledge about Affiliate Marketing. So what are you waiting for, Go on and and Get your First Affiliate Sale today.

If you liked this post (Which took me long to complete), make sure You comment below and share this post on facebook and stumbleupon..!

+Garish Wasil is a 19 years old young Passionate Blogger from India and founder of Vast9 where I share Blogging tips and online marketing strategies that has helped me to make a passive income online.
Make sure to Join Vast9 on facebook and follow Vast9 on twitter.

I’d like to add my own THANK YOU in capital letters. It’s very rare to see such a helpful post in this niche. You basically covered ALL about affiliate marketing in a single, easy-to-understand blog post. Thanks a lot again!

Oh man, this is it. I don’t know why people waste their money on so called WSOs when People like you are giving that all away for free
I struggled hard when i started as an Affiliate Marketer; Wished someone had written such descriptive post then. Anyways, Thanks for sharing this post, this is what makes your blog different from others !

Thanks for your comment. Until you know what an affiliate is and how the affiliate business model works, you can never make much money. I have covered both the aspects of affiliate marketing (starting off and making money) in this post itself, Hope you enjoyed it

Hi young man, I have read the topic quite often (Affiliate marketing), but I do not understand HOW to do it. I know I have to promote my affiliate link but how, I do not know. To write an article? Yes but how. So please write in your blog how to do it, because technically I cannot do it, I do not understand how to do it.

Hi Rahadi, I have mentioned a few quite useful strategies under the section “Promoting the Products and Getting Sales” above in this post, I hope you read that (or not ?).
Writing articles is a cool strategy as I mentioned in this post and it is not too difficult to write those review articles
More coming on this topics, Stay tuned to Vast9 ! Cheers!

If you read the post thoroughly, there ought to be less chances of confusion.
Affiliate Marketing is just selling products that are not yours but you are paid commission, from its creator, to promote it.
Read the first 2 points under the “Promoting the Products and Getting Sales” Section again and you will be able to figure out your question

You mentioned above that “you must have an audience that will be interested in that product” , what if i create too many email accounts and Register in a particular product’s website…!
would you give me some advice ,. Thank you..

HI
Affiliate market looks simple. But in action how tough it should be i have to see. i tried a few but they demanding money. that is why not able to get in to business. pl give some tips without money.
thanks,
sincerely,
venugopal

I like the emphasis on the importance of finding the right affiliate product. I think it is also very important to find the right niche for that product. I am trying to create niche website but struggling with finding niches. I hope to get some help from this site. Nicely written and condensed information here.

, I have read the topic quite often (Affiliate marketing), but I do not understand HOW to do it. I do not know. To write an article? Yes but how. So please write in your blog how to do it, because technically I cannot do it, I do not understand how to do it.

Vishal, Writing Articles is not something to learn about. As I told above, Start to dig in the niche which you are passionate about (atleast when you’re just starting out with aff marketing). If you are not good in writing articles, you can hire a writer.

Thanks for posting such a well articulated article. I have some points to clear.
1) I don’t have any blog and website, starting a new blog or website will serve the purpose ?
2) Writing a blog or submitting article is require a good writing skills. Will a novice writer be able to promote his product in effective way ?
3) Does it require some technical knowledge also? Having a basic knowledge of computer will do ?
Thanks
Moshahid Ahmad

As i have seen many blogs about affiliate marketing , comparing your article with them , you have started from root level but one problem is there some affiliate providers are not giving actual commission generated , sometimes you are not able to get money for the sale generated by you

Man thanks a lot, I have been strangling with this affiliate product promotion and nothing work, because i didn’t have enough idea how this works. believe me i have wasted money. By following your guideline I can see the whole picture now. thanks

Thanks, I am new to affiliate marketing but not to sound too much like a tough guy but I really believe that I am on the right track, and its sites like this that I can pay all of my success to.
thanks
john

One major problem I’ve encountered within the Internet Marketing field is this tendency we all have to begin working dilligently on our chosen marketing strategy and then become distracted by the next “bright shiny thing” that comes out on the market. It takes great strength of will, but you must focus on using just a handful of tried and tested promotional techniques in combination with a few simple tools which will do the donkey work for you and then, over time, you will come out on top.

thanks for the article.
can you give an estimate of what kind of money affiliate marketing can over. i know it depends on success rate but can you give examples of people monthy incomes who put in a few hours a week doing this?

This is the best articular which i have seen till date about affiliate marketing.
But the only thing i wants you to help me out is that can you let me know with some affiliate marketing places where i can start earning.

hi,thanks for ur information.It was really interesting and very much effective for me..as it written in simple words…thanks once again and I wud like to know the defects/cons of this marketing system.I will come again later to read more, bye.

Hi,
Thanks for your information, I opened my account with Clickbank doing R&D, finally succeeded. Is there is any other site I can open my account for affiliate marketing, please let me know( Ido not have any website).

It is selling stuff that you don’t own, from the people you don’t even know, on line. Affiliate marketing is composed of three important people, the “merchant”, the “affiliate” and of course the “buyer”.

Hardly I find some very informative blogs. Yours is one of them. That only blog made me known with affiliate marketing completely which I was searching for so long. Thanks alot for this very infortamtive and amazing post.

Is there any way to promote my own brand(E lectronic C igarette) using an affiliate marketing. I dont have any online purchasing method in my site. Now am selling the products in bulk of amount..Please help me how to promote my product..

Hey there! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any trouble with hackers?
My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing a few months of hard work due to no data backup.
Do you have any methods to prevent hackers?

I have sent a couple of my friends to this post, because you’ve explained things so clearly. Affiliate marketing is a great business, but it definitely, like anything else, requires work and dedication to become good at it.

FROM MONTHS I WAS SEARCHING FOR HOW TO PROMOTE THE PRODUCT BUT NEVER HAD ANY LUCK AND NEVER UNDERSTOOD A SINGLE THING BUT YOUR POST ON THIS TOPIC IS GREAT THANKS BUT I HAVE SOME DOUBT.
HOW TO GET AFFFILATE LINK FROM CLICKBANK ? I ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT IN IT.
AND COULD YOU SUGGEST SOME SITES WHERE I CAN POST ARTICLE AND CAN GET MY PRODUCT SOLD????
PLEASE HELP ON THIS….

Hi there this is kind of of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML.
I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding skills so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Garish,
Thanks for the detailed explanation about affiliated marketing. I have a product and the product name is Panjami Hair oil and I also written a blog about this. I am getting moderate traffic and sales is also happening. Can you tell me how to increase the traffic.

Hi Garish, Thanks a lot for your informative and most importantly very clearly written post. Can you also give some tips on how to search for good and relevant publishers for a particular type of business. Also wanted to get an idea on some pricing standards in Affiliate Marketing (i.e. how much do the publishers charge for various tasks?)

Thanks alot for this much needed information. Affiliate marketing is a very broad topic and I am planning to start,however I could not find compiled information anywhere. You have explained it in a very simple and subtle language.I am sure any beginner can learn a lot from this post and start monetising. I am starting right away. Wish you a very good luck for your next post.

Great Article Garish, you have covered almost everything .. also to promote most of the affiliate campaigns its a good idea to create websites, that are based on popular affiliate models like coupon websites, price comparison website, daily deal blogs etc for maximum monetization

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Guy Behind Vast9 !

I am Garish Wasil, 20 Years old Online Marketer and a cool Blogger, from India. I am running this blog from last 4 years and I share here all my Blogging/Marketing Strategies which has helped me to generates a Passive Income Online.